Pre-teen accidentally completes half-marathon; receives medal

When LeeAdianez Rodriguez lined up at the start line this past Sunday in Rochester, New York, she thought she was running a 5km race. Instead, she unintentionally competed in a half-marathon — and finished the entire 21.2km track in 2 hours, 42 minutes and 31 seconds.

Rodriguez and her mother, Brendalee Espada, thought the pre-teen was arriving late when they pulled up near the start line of the Rochester Regional Health and Flower City Challenge, reports the Democrat and Chronicle.

Espada dropped off her daughter and went to park the car. In her mother’s absence, Rodriguez joined the thousands of runners lining up on Rochester’s Broad Street Bridge and started running as soon as the group took off.

What she didn’t know, however, was that she was running with the half-marathon group. Her scheduled run, the Wegmans Family 5k, was scheduled to depart 15 minutes later from the same location.

After running for, what she says seemed like a long time, she says she began to wonder: why the run was taking so long?

This race would have been her third 5km race. It wasn’t until about halfway through the race that the Rodriguez learned that she was running a much longer race. At that point she had already raced longer than ever before, so she just kept on going.

Meanwhile, her mother was becoming increasingly frantic as her daughter failed to appear at the finish line of the 5k race.

Eventually, the worried mom reached out to race officials and local police in the area, who began searching for the girl.

“She just wanted to finish the race,” Espada told the Chronicle. “Two hours after I started looking for her, I see that one of the officers found her. And I see she has a medal.”

Indeed, Rodriguez finished 1,885th of 2,111, and was one of just five 12-year-olds recorded as finishing.

“I don’t even know how she did it,” her mother said. “I’m so proud of her.”